Masterton & Eketahuna

There was a little bit of blue sky when we left Castlepoint on the Saturday morning but as we drove inland the clouds and cold air returned. 

We needed electricity again for our heater so we parked up in the spacious grounds of the Solway A&P Showgrounds in Masterton. My cough is a deterrent to playing golf at the moment as it seems to worsen with the cold air so it was good to walk no more than 30 minutes and well rugged-up to the Screening Room ( lovely restaurant & theatre complex) to see "Rocketman" - a great emotional film about Elton John's life that we both really enjoyed. What a musical genius Elton is and, in my mind, he right up there with Mozart and Beethoven. And such an unloved, sad childhood apart from his lovely grandmother. It's certainly good to have a better understanding of his background.

After the movie we decided to just have tiny meals, which we enjoyed,  in the restaurant. However, with still having space, the dessert menu then beckoned and we both decided to have the baklava - a great choice as it was so delicious, even better than the best we had in Turkey! Nuts, quince & apple were the perfect accompliment in the dish - yum!!

After eating it was again a cold walk back to the camp all the time hoping that our electrical connection had dried out enough to work again. It had got really wet in the Castlepoint rain and Len had managed to open it and remove a lot of water allowing it to work again temporarily but when he plugged it in at the Showgrounds, once again it was 'no-go'! But, hurrah, by the time we got back it worked! The plug connection now has its very own special plastic bag cover.

Cold Pukaka forest track!

Eilbeck's looking into eel beck!

The next day it was time to head north again, stopping south of Eketahuna to visit Pukaka, the Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre which is into conservation and restoration of unique fauna & flora and is a popular place to visit. We paid $17 each to to do the nice little bush walk which takes you past several aviaries, through the kiwi house and out to the long-fin eel area where we arrived just in time to see the feeding. They have about 30 eels of different ages and at the end of their lives they migrate through the Pacific Ocean to Tonga where they spawn, unfortunately dying immediately afterwards! Surviving young then migrate back to where their parents came from taking about 17 months to do so and facing lots of threats on the way. Although their numbers are rapidly declining they are still commercially fished.

It was good to clearly see the white kiwi in the kiwi house but they have no others there at present. We also saw quite a few Kaka but not many other birds. Just one tui, a bellbird, fantail, koreru - we see many more of all of these in our own backyard!
The kokako and whio were elusive and we could see no sign of any life in the tuatara area or the spider, weta, and praying mantis boxes. Never mind, we have seen those before too. We're pleased we went, just disappointed that a lot of wildlife seemed to be missing.

Power supplied through plastic bag!

We stopped for the night at the Eketahuna, population around 400, campground which has good NZMCA reviews. A quaint, homely little spot with about 6 other vehicles here, 2 or 3 of which are probably permanent. The ground is a bit wet but I think we'll be ok where we are. Friendly hosts who come and go, great showers and toilets, free washing machine (unheard of!) and a kitchen with all you need if you need one. All for $16 a night - has to be the best value in NZ.

We're rather enjoying holing up here so we are staying another night before we explore the other towns between here and Hastings. 

No.1 on Trip Advisor?!

Today we did the tiny walk down to river where the old swing bridge used to be before doing the Cliff Walk from the camp entrance into town - an easy stroll of about 20 minutes each way. 

Is the Queen sitting on the throne?!

Being Monday several of the few shops in town were closed but we only needed milk from the 4 Square. Len has also had time to explore the internal mechanisms of our bus door as it has become a bit difficult to open without giving it a good shove with the shoulder first. We think it is working a bit better now. Just the backing camera to fix!